Christian F. Ostermann is director of the History and Public Policy Program (HAPP) as well as the director of the Global Europe Program (GE) at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Under his purview as director of HAPP and GE, Ostermann also oversees the Cold War International History Program (CWIHP), the European Energy Security Initiative (EESI), the North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP) and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP). Additionally, Ostermann has chaired the Ion Ratiu Democracy Award since 2006, and currently serves as a co-editor of Cold War History as well as an editor of the CWIHP Bulletin. Ostermann also often works as a consultant on many historical documentaries.

Prior to joining the Wilson Center in 1997 as an associate director of CWIHP, Ostermann worked as a research fellow at The George Washington University’s National Security Archive, involvement that still continues today with his role as a Senior Research Fellow at the National Security Archive. At the same time, Ostermann also worked as a lecturer in history and international affairs at Georgetown University and The George Washington University. Further back, before coming to Washington, he studied in Bonn, Cologne and Hamburg and worked as a research fellow at the Commission for the History of Parliament and Political Parties in Bonn, Germany. Ostermann is the author of numerous publications including The Rise and Fall of Détente on the Korean Peninsula, 1970-1974 (2011), edited with James Person; Crisis and Confrontation on the Korean Peninsula: 1968-1969 (2010), edited with James Person; Connecting Histories: Decolonization and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, 1945-1962(2010), ed. with Christopher Goscha; Inside China’s Cold War (CWIHP Bulletin 16 (2008/2009)) and Uprising in East Germany 1953: The Cold War, The German Question, and the First Major Upheaval Behind the Iron Curtain (2001) with Charlers S. Maier.

This seminar will delineate the French welfare state in long-term historical perspective and consider the multiple strands of tradition, institutions, and policies that contributed to its founding and development. It will link practices to successive political regimes and make comparisons between French and British welfare systems. What are the possible future directions of French welfare policy in view of past precedents and current conditions? more

Upon his release from prison, Nelson Mandela led the crowd in a rousing chant of the old resistance phrase, "Come Back Africa." Now, twenty years later, we may begin to ask what kind of Africa is coming back. The question can be addressed by looking beyond the struggle of the African National Congress to focus on ordinary people's mobilizations in the past. A history of generational conflict, chiefship, and trans-ethnic solidarity continues to be felt in the present. more

The possession of territory or bounded political space has been crucial for the modern state, but historians and political analysts have left its properties unexamined. How have the premises and practices of territoriality changed from the seventeenth century to our own era? more

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The Global Europe Program is pleased to announce the launch of a new collaborative publication series between the Wilson Center and the Istanbul Policy Center: the IPC-Wilson Center Turkey Papers. In the inaugural publication in the series, Kemal Kirişci discusses “TTIP’s Enlargement and the Case of Turkey.” Kirişci argues that Turkey’s inclusion in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership would be economically and geo-strategically advantageous for all parties involved.

CWIHP is pleased to announce the publication of the conference transcript and report from "Moles, Defectors, and Deceptions: James Angleton and His Influence on US Counterintelligence," a joint conference held by the Wilson Center and the Georgetown University Center for Peace & Security Studies.

The Kennan Institute and the Global Europe Program kicked off the year with a scholar luncheon. Directors Christian Ostermann and Matthew Rojansky highlighted their interest in inter-program and inter-scholar cooperation and dialogue. The lunch was held as an informal starting point for fruitful collaboration between scholars with intersecting academic interests.

The program will provide Korean students currently enrolled in an advanced degree program the opportunity to spend between three to six months at the Center conducting advanced research on an important public policy issue or a topic in international history.

Upon his release from prison, Nelson Mandela led the crowd in a rousing chant of the old resistance phrase, "Come Back Africa." Now, twenty years later, we may begin to ask what kind of Africa is coming back. The question can be addressed by looking beyond the struggle of the African National Congress to focus on ordinary people's mobilizations in the past. A history of generational conflict, chiefship, and trans-ethnic solidarity continues to be felt in the present.

Military occupation has been a crucial dimension of U.S. foreign relations from the early nineteenth century to the present. The occupations of Germany and Japan in the wake of the Second World War generally were regarded positively. The occupation of Iraq, which initially met with some approbation, eventually tarnished the reputation of the George W. Bush administration. Wilson Center fellow Susan L. Carruthers will explain the transformation of public attitude.

While the military contest between North and South dragged on inconclusively over four years, an equally crucial contest of diplomacy, ideology, and propaganda was waged abroad. Powerful economic interests and anti-democratic sympathies favored the South. On the other hand there was a reservoir of popular good will toward the "Great Republic" and widespread antipathy toward human slavery. Each side sought to shape foreign debate over the "American Question." The Union won only when it learned to align its cause with what foreigners understood to be an ongoing international struggle for liberty, equality, and self-government.

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A collection of archival documents on inter-Korean, US-ROK and DPRK-Communist bloc relations from 1976 through 1979, drawn from archives in the United States, South Korea, (East) Germany, Romania, Hungary, Australia, the United Kingdom, the former Yugoslavia, and the United Nations

NKIDP e-Dossier no. 13, "North Korean Perspectives on the Overthrow of Syngman Rhee, 1960," is introduced by Jong-dae Shin, Christian F. Ostermann, and James Person and features twenty translated documents cataloging North Korea’s immediate responses to the April 19 Revolution in South Korea and how the DPRK attempted to take advantage of the events which ultimately led to the resignation of President Syngman Rhee.

Now available for download, “The Global Cuban Missile Crisis at 50.” CWIHP marks the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis by releasing CWIHP Bulletin 17/18, with over 500 newly declassified and translated documents from international sources.

"The Rise and Fall of Détente on the Korean Peninsula, 1970-1974" features the transcript of the second in a series of critical oral history conferences jointly convened by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ North Korea International Documentation Project and the University of North Korean Studies and a selection of primary source documents.

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Oleg Kozlovsky, a Russian democracy and human rights activist. Kozlovsky is cofounder of the Solidarnost United Democratic Movement. Christian Ostermann is the director of numerous programs at the Wilson Center including the History and Public Policy and European programs.

Christian Ostermann is Director of the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center; Svetlana Savranskaya is a Research Fellow at the National Security Archive; Hope Harrison is Assistant Professor of History at George Washington University.

Christian Ostermann is Director of the Cold War International History Project at the WWC; Svetlana Savranskaya is a Research Fellow at the National Security Archive; Hope Harrison is Assistant Professor of History at George Washington University